


Unchain My Mind

by blue_veins



Series: The Blood is Love au [9]
Category: Rusty Quill RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, but they can be soft with each other sometimes, they aren't good at words in this au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26538496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_veins/pseuds/blue_veins
Summary: Alex has a nightmare, and Ben is there to help him through it, as best he can.
Relationships: Ben Meredith/Alexander J. Newall
Series: The Blood is Love au [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878586
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Unchain My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> I was in the mood to torture Alex the other night. So you know. Here we are. 
> 
> (and i know not everyone is as good at compartmentalizing as me, when i say torture Alex, i mean paperdoll version. please don't be weird about this.)
> 
> Title is that of the song by John Clark, Nick Stanford.

Ben opened his eyes to a still dark room, unsure of what had woke him; none of their safety measures had gone off, so he knew they weren’t under attack, but something  _ had _ woken him. Which was when he felt Alex shift and twitch next to him. They hadn’t been sleeping together for all that long, well, that wasn’t  _ entirely _ true: they had been fucking for quite some time, but actually staying with each other afterwards, getting close, learning about each other, that had been newer, and evolving rapidly. Ben had been surprised at how much Alex had already meant to him. How much him and Alex relied on, and trusted each other.

Alex gasped in his sleep, whispering a hushed, but pained  _ no _ . Ben took a closer look in the low light of their room, to see Alex absolutely slicked with sweat, hands were fisted in the sheets (in a completely different way than they had been the night before) and there were tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. Ben had never seen Alex like this, but he knew a nightmare when he saw one, having plenty of experience with them with Tim; mostly when he was younger, but he still had them occasionally, they were never pleasant, and this one looked to be a doozy. 

Ben was about to reach out and gently wake him (while keeping a bit of distance, no need to get punched if Alex woke poorly to something like this) when Alex’s eyes shot open with a sharp gasp. 

Ben was on it immediately, getting into his eyeline, “Hey, Alex? It’s me, it’s Ben. It was a nightmare. You’re not wherever you just had been, you aren’t back there. You’re in our shitty flat with me? Can you understand me?”

Alex shuddered a breath, eyes flickering a bit before finding Ben’s face, and nodding. 

“Okay, good. Can I touch you?”

“P-please.”

Ben had never heard Alex sound so vulnerable, and the soft stutter hit Ben square in the chest. He was reminded so strongly of when Tim was young, and wanted to be held, he never thought he’d feel like this for anyone else. But in this moment, Ben felt like he would do literally anything to take that fear from Alex, to take whatever was torturing him in his sleep away so he wouldn’t have to suffer through it again. 

Ben cupped the side of Alex’s neck with one hand ( _ christ _ , he could feel Alex’s pulse rabbiting under his fingertips), and ran his other along the under and outside of his arm, which incited the exact response he hoped for: Alex released his grip on the sheets and reached up to grab onto Ben instead. This allowed Ben to wrap his arm around him and hold him close as Alex trembled in his grasp. 

Ben wrapped his other hand around the back of Alex’s neck as he curled up close against him, quiet little sobs, and hitching breaths escaping him between words and phrases like, “I tried to save her” “I was too small” “The fire was everywhere” “It was so hot” “I couldn’t breathe” Ben just held him through it, occasionally speaking softly, gentle reassurances, just attempting to ground Alex in the present in any way he could to try and dispel the clinging tendrils of the nightmare. Alex had never told him what had happened to his parents, but he didn’t need to, that wasn’t how they worked. They had each other now, and that was what mattered, not what happened in the past.

They stayed like that while Alex pulled himself together, reorienting himself to reality. He eventually took a deep shuddering breath, and pulled back. Ben allowed him to lean back against the bed, but didn’t completely release him, knowing that touch was generally the most grounding, and after something that intense, Alex would need that grounding for some time, yet.

“I-I’m sorry. It… I haven’t had one that bad in,” Alex’s breath hitched, “in a long time.”

“‘s alright. Something I’m familiar with. Can’t help what your brain does while you’re asleep.” 

For the first time, Alex glanced around, “No one -?”

“No one here except us.”

Alex breathed a sigh of relief. No one saw him anything other than well put together and in control. Well, except those who saw his bloody, feral smile, though, whoever saw that, rarely was in any capacity to say anything about Alex afterwards anyway. 

“And you?” Alex looked pained to even be saying the words out loud. Alex was one of the few people Ben had ever completely trusted in his entire life, and he knew Alex trusted him in turn, but Ben didn’t begrudge him the question. If word got out that Alex had a weakness, especially at such a crucial point in his growth, in his plan to take over this city, it would ruin everything he worked so goddamned hard for. Ben found that not only did he want to protect Alex, both his reputation and image, but also just as a partner. Ben hadn’t felt this urge for anyone except for one other person in his life, and that was his baby brother. 

Well. If that was how he felt. That was that question answered.

“I’m with you, Alex, til the end, whatever that may be.” Ben swiped his thumb along Alex’s jaw, who responded immediately by leaning into the touch, chasing that grounding feeling. 

Yes, they had each other now, and that was what mattered. Another level of trust, another way they were twined closer together. Ben wasn’t sure at times where one of them ended and the other began, but again. Didn’t matter. They were together, to make the world a better place, through whatever means they deemed necessary. 


End file.
